Comment by creata
5 days ago
In Scott Alexander's case, it's because he's into ideas (e.g., eugenics) that most people find reprehensible, so he has to couch them in a lot of bullshit to make them more palatable, and to give himself some credibility.
That link is unlikely to be an unbiased accounting.
Speaking of long-winded rationalist blog posts, the evidence for that claim is this long, detailed, full-of-receipts accounting of David Gerard's use of RationalWiki (though mostly Wikipedia) to push his personal agenda in subtle ways while scrupulously following the rules to avoid being caught at it:
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik...
IME they're usually the first thing you see when you get to the comments, so the really long essays are possibly a way to bore people into not getting to the comment section.